Service Dog

Looking for an express lane to the ninth rung of hell? Try burgling a disabled veteran's house and shooting her dog. About 6 p.m. Monday, Kinga Kiss-Johnson, a retired U.S. Army sergeant, left her Augusta, Ga., home to buy food for her service dog Balto, a black Labrador retriever. She returned to find a side window open, and Balto lying on the couch obviously injured, according to a police report from the Richmond County Sheriff's Department. The injuries appeared to be from a gunshot.

SACRAMENTO - Jim Power, a licensed trainer of guide dogs for the blind from San Rafael, was visiting a crowded Southern California theme park a week ago when he spied "a 20-something lady...with a Chihuahua on a leash. " The small pooch wore a vest identifying it as a service dog. "It didn't particularly look...very legitimate," Power told a state Senate committee looking into what the disabled community, dog trainers and businesses call a growing problem: fake service dogs. Representatives of the California restaurant, retail, hotel, apartment and condominium industries testified that dog owners, who don't want to be separated from their pets, are abusing the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal and state laws by falsely identifying their canines as working animals.

SACRAMENTO - Jim Power, a licensed trainer of guide dogs for the blind from San Rafael, was visiting a crowded Southern California theme park a week ago when he spied "a 20-something lady...with a Chihuahua on a leash. " The small pooch wore a vest identifying it as a service dog. "It didn't particularly look...very legitimate," Power told a state Senate committee looking into what the disabled community, dog trainers and businesses call a growing problem: fake service dogs. Representatives of the California restaurant, retail, hotel, apartment and condominium industries testified that dog owners, who don't want to be separated from their pets, are abusing the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal and state laws by falsely identifying their canines as working animals.

A U.S. Airways flight was canceled after passengers protested that a blind man and his seeing-eye dog had been kicked off Wednesday evening, according to the airline and local media reports. Albert Rizzi, who lives in Long Island , N.Y., said the trouble began after he boarded the flight from Philadelphia to Long Island's MacArthur Airport and the seat in front of his didn't have stowage space for his guide dog, Doxy. A flight attendant insisted that Doxy stay under a seat, and other passengers offered their spaces.

By the time summer school starts in early July, Caleb will probably walk into class with a golden retriever at his side. Caleb Ciriacks is a 7-year-old severely autistic boy who for the most part doesn't speak. He shrieks and paces when he gets anxious, and on occasion he pinches and scratches others. Eddy is Caleb's service dog, tethered to the boy by a red strap. The dog keeps Caleb from running off into crowds or darting into traffic, and he knows to intervene when the boy starts to feel anxious.

At home, Tessa is a couch potato. But when she is working, the sturdy black Labrador is purely professional. "Even though she's a big baby and a lovable thing, when it comes to working, that's her joy," said Sandy Cluster as she hugged the big dog lolling on the couch beside her. Tessa is a service dog and Cluster's constant companion. Cluster had polio as an infant and today is affected by post-polio syndrome and arthritis.

A Long Island school official said a hearing-impaired teenager will not be allowed to bring his service dog to school, despite a ruling that the district's policy violates state law. The East Meadow school district will appeal the decision of the state Division of Human Rights, which said that John Cave, 15, of Westbury must be allowed to bring his dog, Simba, to school. East Meadow Supt. Leon Campo said the district disagreed with the order's contention that disabled students have an "absolute right" to bring service animals to school.

A disabled West Hills woman who said an Encino restaurant owner refused to serve her last month when she went inside with her licensed "service dog" filed suit against the restaurant Thursday, charging the owner with discrimination against the handicapped. Sandy Oseas, 47, along with her attorney, Gloria Allred, and her dog, a 65-pound poodle named Landmark, sat outside the restaurant, World Famous Mr.

A legal dogfight between an Encino restaurant owner and a disabled West Hills woman who claimed that he unlawfully barred her licensed service dog from his gourmet tamale restaurant ended Saturday with the owner eating crow instead of tamales. The woman, Sandy Oseas, 47, accompanied by her attorney, Gloria Allred, and her dog Landmark, a 65-pound poodle, gathered outside Mr.

Scene one, take one. Interior, Academy Cafe. Lunchtime. Action. Manager bites dog, dog calls cops. Cut. "I'm not believing it, that's the problem," critiques the director, the man with a script and a badge. It isn't Art, but it doesn't have to be. It's the Law.

NEW ORLEANS -- A Secret Service dog fell to its death in New Orleans this past weekend while performing a security sweep of a six-story parking garage next to the Ritz-Carlton where Vice President Joe Biden was speaking. The dog, a bomb-sniffing Belgian Malinois, was working in the Premier Parking garage on Iberville Street near the French Quarter hotel when it fell off the roof around 6 p.m. Saturday night, New Orleans police told local reporters, including WWL-TV . It was a busy weekend in New Orleans, as the city prepared to host next weekend's Super Bowl and saw several Mardi Gras parades, including the Krewe of Barkus parade Sunday that drew plenty of dog owners and their pets to the French Quarter.

Looking for an express lane to the ninth rung of hell? Try burgling a disabled veteran's house and shooting her dog. About 6 p.m. Monday, Kinga Kiss-Johnson, a retired U.S. Army sergeant, left her Augusta, Ga., home to buy food for her service dog Balto, a black Labrador retriever. She returned to find a side window open, and Balto lying on the couch obviously injured, according to a police report from the Richmond County Sheriff's Department. The injuries appeared to be from a gunshot.

The landmark Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 stated very clearly that people with disabilities had a right to take their service animals along with them wherever they went. But in retrospect, the law wasn't as clear as it might have been on one little point: What exactly is a service animal? The law termed it "any animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability" — but here was the rub: That seemed to imply that an elephant, just for instance, could make an excellent service animal.

One moment 15-year-old Glen Gregos was a happy-go-lucky kid riding a motorcycle. The next he was the lucky-to-be-alive victim of a terrible accident, paralyzed from the chest down. Now 54 and a resident of Woodland Hills, Gregos has built a rewarding life — college, marriage, a successful banking career, a daughter who just graduated from college. Still, for decades after the accident, Gregos faced challenges every day from simple things most of us take for granted — going to the grocery store, going out the front door.

By the time summer school starts in early July, Caleb will probably walk into class with a golden retriever at his side. Caleb Ciriacks is a 7-year-old severely autistic boy who for the most part doesn't speak. He shrieks and paces when he gets anxious, and on occasion he pinches and scratches others. Eddy is Caleb's service dog, tethered to the boy by a red strap. The dog keeps Caleb from running off into crowds or darting into traffic, and he knows to intervene when the boy starts to feel anxious.

Three days before they are scheduled to vote on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed budget, council members jockeyed Friday to find ways to avoid hundreds of layoffs, by proposing fees, reworking the numbers and demanding concessions from public employees. Council President Eric Garcetti offered a plan to preserve as many as 1,000 jobs by counting, at least tentatively, on revenue from the mayor's plan to lease 10 public parking garages. Councilman Herb Wesson went even further, proposing no layoffs at all. The council's Budget and Finance Committee recommended the elimination of 1,761 positions last week.

He may have won an award last month for his crusade to educate people about the rights of disabled people with service dogs, but for James Maaske, one all-too-common confrontation made it clear that his battle is far from over. The day before he was to accept a St. Francis of Assisi commendation from Mayor Tom Bradley, Maaske and his golden retriever-Labrador, Billie, decided to take a dry run from his apartment in Palms to downtown via their main source of transportation, an RTD bus.

Erma L. Miller struck her first blow for disability rights in 1997. She sued Coco's after one of its restaurants refused to serve her when she showed up with an assistance dog. Coco's settled the case, but Miller was just getting started. The Marriott hotel chain and a string of McDonald's restaurants, among other defendants, would soon feel her wrath.

A Long Island school official said a hearing-impaired teenager will not be allowed to bring his service dog to school, despite a ruling that the district's policy violates state law. The East Meadow school district will appeal the decision of the state Division of Human Rights, which said that John Cave, 15, of Westbury must be allowed to bring his dog, Simba, to school. East Meadow Supt. Leon Campo said the district disagreed with the order's contention that disabled students have an "absolute right" to bring service animals to school.

Lady Harley died seven months ago, but the Siberian husky is still being honored for her riding skills. The Ripley's Believe It or Not newspaper strip just ran a cartoon recounting how Lady H. rode more than 200,000 miles on the custom motorcycle of owner Jeremiah Gerbracht. Small wonder that Gerbracht, an actor, wants to put the pooch's story on the silver screen. "She spread goodwill," he said. "People would wave to us on the street. People love that stuff."